December 17th

December 17th After a (rough, and sometimes scary) night’s sleep, we were in the lobby at 7:30am to do the walk to Federation Square to catch a tour bus to the Dandenong Ranges and Puffing Billy. This was a trip that we took the last time we were here, and we really enjoyed it. Two different front desk employees gave us two different sets of directions on how to get to Federation Square, and both sets were completely wrong. But we made it! Just as the bus was loading! High fives!




The first stop is Grant’s café, where you get Devonshire tea (scones with jam and cream, tea or coffee). I’ve been looking forward to this for two years, so it was fairly thrilling.




Pinkies out.






First Australian flag of the trip.




Leah has been introduced to the beauty that is a Crunchie bar.




And then out to feed the birds. This part had changed a lot in two years, and was disappointing. There used to be hundreds of parrots that you could hand-feed, but now you stand in a gated area and offer seed out of a bowl. I don’t have photos of this, as Felix isn’t a fan of the birds. We hung out in the gift shop and recreated the event.








Up next: Puffing Billy. Woot!






Hanging out of the side of the train is easy enough to get behind, but doing so while going over an overpass is a bit harder on my stomach. The kids think that it’s a blast.










View from the train.




And then to a small village called Sassafras, where I was too busy buying stuff at the candy store and toy store to really take photos.




The boys took the kids swimming while Leah and I ran some errands. We hit a Gloria Jean’s, which just happens to be her mom’s name. And then unfortunately offended a cashier in Target by not being able to understand a single word that she said, and I like to think of myself as fairly proficient in Australian accents. I believe that she was asking if we wanted “fly-bys”, which are maybe some sort of promotional thing going on here? Australians, please weigh in.




After food and a bit of resting, we headed out to ride the free tram around the city. After waiting for it for about 10 minutes, we thought it a good idea to, oh, you know, check the schedule. Turns out that it had stopped running just as we arrived, so plan two was just to wander around aimlessly. That worked out nicely, as the kids got to play in this thing.






And then we walked back through the Christmas village, where apparently Sophie had had enough of her jacket, as she tied it around a tree and then bailed. Grammy, we are TRYING to keep her warm, but she is foiling us at every turn.






At first we thought this was a dog, but it has a snout, so we’re going with boar wearing a spiked collar. Having never actually seen a boar, I am just guessing.





And then back to the hotel to sleep. Whew.

Tomorrow we’re heading to Warragul to visit good friends.